Trouble Me
by La Maddalena
Summary: Disturb me with all your cares and your worries. Trouble me on the days when you feel spent. / Collection of Leon/Aerith vignettes. Rating is precautionary. 19 of 22: Distance.
1. Staccato

**A/N: **I'm working on this LxA collection for a drabble challenge a friend and I have going on LJ. There are 22 prompts in all, and this first one's for #18 – Hand.

These drabbles don't follow any particular sequence, and bounce between fluff and angst and other lovely things, so feel free to skip forward and back.

We've got a long way to go. o.o

**Disclaimer: **Kingdom Hearts is the property of Square-Enix and Disney. I own only this fic, and the hamster that spits it out from inside my brain. Wahaha.

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**Trouble Me  
1 - Staccato**

Muted drumming breaks the silence—it's barely perceptible, that beat, but you hear it. You hear everything; your eyes lift a little from the book's pages, almost of their own accord. (But while you look like the very soul of vigilance and awareness, this is a lie. You've caught yourself dozing once in a while.)

You can't tell what it is. Not at first, anyway, for so many reasons—the drapes are pulled back from the high windows just so, the sun is in your eyes, making your head spin a little, and for all you know the sound could have just been your imagination. (Or—gods forbid—your own heartbeat, the blood pounding in your ears. You hear _that_, too, from time to time, in the quiet of the library, when she sits at your side.)

Her hand lies on the table, lightly tapping the wood mere inches from your own, and it takes you a little time to realize _that's _what you've been hearing. (And that it's not your heart, as you feared, though if you listened a little harder you'd be able to tell that the staccato of her fingers matches its rhythm.)

She raises her own eyes in inquiry. Something wells up in your throat, something you want to say to her, but it never comes out. You can't do anything about it; you just shake your head. She returns to her reading, serene as ever.

You wish you could do the same. When you try to go back to your book you find you've already read the same line more than once—far more than just once. (But you never used to have trouble concentrating. Remember? What's changed?) The drumming is so loud in your ears; it's worse than even the sun.

You don't know how much time passes—seconds, minutes, hours—before it finally pushes you to your breaking point, because your nerves are all alight and you can't take it anymore. You reach across the space between you—inches, miles, light-years—and take that hand in your own, just to stop the sound, just because you need the silence. (But when did her hand become so small?)

And, at your side, she blinks, starts a little. Then she looks up at you again, to ask, "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," you say, much too quickly. Another staccato; you're disturbed to find it matches your breathing too.

She knows it's not nothing; the ghost of a smile that plays around her mouth is only half the question. You think her hand turns upward in yours, tracing the lines on your palm, but there's no way you can be sure.

"It just bothers me a little," you finish, rather lamely. There isn't a thing you can do to help _that_, either. "When you do that."

"Really?" Something entirely different from the sunlight dances in her eyes. "Sorry, it's kind of a nervous habit. It was a little too quiet for me, I guess." She laughs a little, stifles it for your sake. "I'll try to keep it down."

It's only then that you release her; you let go quickly, like you've been burned, before you drop your eyes again.

"…Thanks."

You feel the warmth of her smile for a little while more, before she looks away from you and the silence returns, having pieced itself back together in the interim. You don't know how much time passes—seconds, minutes, hours—before her fingers begin again, tapping time on the tabletop to the same pace as your blood.

_"Aerith."_

"Sorry."_  
_


	2. Discord

**A/N: **Oh god, another fluffy piece. A fluffy _humor _piece. What is the world coming to. O.o

But the idea was there and it wouldn't be let go. And, iunno. It kind of makes my nonexistent heart smile. XD

This was written for prompt #22 – Rice.

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**2 - Discord**

The bowl sits, quite innocently, on his nightstand, on a tray beside an equally innocent-looking glass of water. For the hell of it, it's a white bowl, and there are flowers painted on it, and a thin plume of what has to be steam rises from the inside.

She sits in a chair by the bed, stirring, humming softly through the vapor. "It looks like it's cooled enough." The spoon lifts, dripping rice porridge and horror. "All right. Here comes the choo-choo train, Leon."

He stares back, face a blank slate. His eyes widen a little; it only looks like slight shock, for all intents and purposes. He hopes she still doesn't know him well enough to see the fear in them, though he can already feel his dignity—would pride be the better word? Or even sanity, perhaps?—beginning to crumble.

"Here comes the WHAT?" He even has to fight to keep his voice level, to stop himself from rolling over to the other side of the bed—which isn't much farther from her at all, but maybe the thought counts for something—so he can ask her what the hell she's on about from a safe distance.

He realizes a little too late that maybe he shouldn't have opened his mouth in the first place, that maybe it's not safe to ask her questions like that. She might actually answer them.

"The choo-choo train," she giggles. Sure enough, he can feel the chill as it settles in his bones. "Open up the tunnel, now."

"Aerith." What was that about not opening his mouth? One part of his mind swears very colorfully at the other for slipping up a second time. "I _can _feed myself, you know."

At this, the spoon lowers back into the bowl.

"Can you, really?"

_Ouch. _He eyes the offending food item dubiously, and her hand by the tray, but she doesn't reach for that damned spoon again. Not yet, anyway. It's only a matter of time.

"Aerith." He looks her square in the face then, stares right into her eyes, because there's really no sense in emasculating himself any further. Dignity is precious as it is; his happens to be going down the drain with alarming speed. "I have a cold."

"I know."

"_Not _any sort of seriously debilitating disease. Like cancer."

He is careful to speak very slowly, to move his lips as little as possible, in case she gets it into her head to try something particularly nasty—like shove the spoon down his throat, for instance, though he knows from experience that that's not the worst she could do. He's also begun to choose his words with more care; if he messes up again it just might be the end of him.

She only giggles again. "And so?"

Damn. If it were up to him, he wouldn't _be _in bed in the first place. It's just a cold. It's not even a particularly _bad _cold, certainly nothing to stay in bed over, especially not when there are other things he could be doing.

But does she see that?

Of course not.

And where is he now?

In bed. Not working. Fighting to keep from being spoonfed that infernal porridge, if only to prove some sort of point.

She'd probably have been prepared to strap him to said bed until he stopped sneezing and complaining of headaches. There's that one part of his mind again, swearing at the other—this time for not having figured out in time that trying to argue with her is usually a lost cause, if not always.

"You really don't have to watch over me like this. I'm contagious. You're going to—"

_You're going to catch it, _he would have said, but he cuts himself off midsentence. He remembers trying that on her yesterday. He remembers her smiling it away, and lo and behold. Look where she is today. Look where she'll probably be tomorrow.

"I'm going to what?"

"Never mind. Don't you have anything better to do?" A cough. It turns into a choke, then a wheeze, but not for the reasons she must be imagining. He has to struggle to get his breath back. "Anything better than… _this? _More important?"

"It's funny," she replies, like it's the most obvious thing, and shame on him for not being aware of it until now, "but I don't. Not until you get better, anyway."

Silence.

He feels his resolve beginning to falter. Then again, it's not as if he had much of it to begin with.

"…Thank you?"

He figures he's been fighting a losing battle all along. The loss doesn't sting half as badly when she laughs—a little less crazily this time, he can't help thinking—and drops a kiss on his cheek. Does she mind that she almost certainly _will _catch the bug now, staying so close by?

Of course not.

"You're welcome."

…But at least the headache's gone away, right?

"Now, hurry and open up the tunnel for the choo-choo train. Your porridge is getting cold."

Not a chance in hell, really.


	3. Ceasefire

**A/N: **For prompt #1 - Bridges. The inside of Aerith's head is a bit of a strange place.

Warning for some things that are suggested, but nothing is explicitly stated. :)

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**3 - Ceasefire**

There are no words here. Only the shadows flung out across the room in their differing shades of black. Only starlight, brief brilliance before the curtains are pulled with finality over the glass. Only the heat, the silence, the space in between—but no words.

"Leon…"

She whispers the name—his name—before she can stop herself, trembling and short of breath. Sometimes she forgets; it's all right. A brief butterfly-touch of fingers to her lips and she remembers, then lips follow those fingers and she thinks they can taste her meaning and her need mixed together.

_No words._

What she wanted to say falls into the rift and is lost. It doesn't matter. She knows the message behind the silence all too well by now.

Just as she knows the grief in his face, the burning in his eyes, the bend in his stance, the weariness in his steps. Even without a light to see by she can make out the shape of them, sketched out in sharp lines against the colorlessness. Everything he has ever wanted and hated to keep hidden. Everything.

And maybe she has always known. Maybe she has always seen, all this time, with her open heart and her open smile and her open hands—

_A ghost._

Open hands fisting in the fabric of his shirt, clenching on his shoulders, running through his hair and murmuring voicelessly on her behalf as they go—that she loves him, she loves him, she's real, breathing, he can hear her sigh and it means she's not a ghost at all.

_Ghosts cannot touch—be touched, hold, feel, love. Love?_

He has not always seen that. When the world around him burned to the ground, when he felt wings etch themselves onto his back, red and broken, he was lost.

One moment more might have been their bridge, then.

The chasm yawns wide between them, though he stands so near his breath steals warmly along her skin. But here, _after—_she thinks, almost, that she can find him.

One moment more might be their bridge, now.

She has no other way to tell him that, not in this place where conversation isn't supposed to exist. But she still wants to know, so badly. She has no idea what it is he witnesses as he comes apart in her arms, as she follows only seconds later.

The afterglow fills her eyes until they run with tears; it's almost beautiful.

She wants to know if he can see.


	4. Oversight

**A/N: **For prompt #15 – Dream. Young!LxA is awkward in this lovely way.

Augh, while some of this really kills me, it wound up kind of writing itself. And wouldn't let me sleep until it had finished. -.-

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**4 - Oversight**

Listen.

The house is so small; sound carries through the walls at night. Close your eyes and listen—you can hear them dreaming.

Yuffie dreams in fireworks, twisting the bedclothes until they constrict, panic and euphoria exploding behind her eyelids in colors so vivid you hear them ringing in your ears. Cid mutters in his sleep, so unceasingly and with such force at times that you're certain he must be haunted by some face, some name, some voice of which you have only the slightest inkling.

But from the room nearest your own, you find nothing. Not a sound, no matter how much you strain. You hear _them _all the time, you don't even have to try, but never him. Why?

Minutes pass—but you have no real way of knowing, so they might be less or more—and perplexity sends you sliding out of bed, crawling forward until you can put your ear to the wall. Still nothing—he could be awake, restless and listening, as you are. You never know; you wouldn't put it past him, either. He always stays awake until he's certain no one else is.

For a moment, you want to call out softly, just to ask, just to see, but you don't.

Instead you rise up, all long and slender fifteen years of you, and move out into the hall. Just close your door, open the one on the right—it's unlocked, it always is—enough to slip inside through the crack. And while the pit of your stomach sinks as though to tell you this isn't okay, not really, not anymore, you pay it no attention.

You just need to see him, that's all.

The room is dark, all dark—the curtains have been drawn so that the moon can cast no shadows. A half-second of cold lightning flashes down your spine. You can't even hear him breathe until you draw nearer; he lies so still.

His hair has fallen into his face, dark and unkempt and longer than you remember, and as you lower yourself to the floor by his bedside you cannot but close the gap of mere inches and brush it away. He feels you, he stirs, mumbles something you don't catch…

_You're dreaming._

…but doesn't wake. Only his hand reaches forward, closing fast around your wrist with strength a boy his age isn't supposed to have, grips it so hard the knuckles go bloodless. You bite down on your lip to force the sudden cry back down into your chest.

"You…" you hear him whisper. "I…"

"Shh." You lean close and murmur in his ear, but you don't touch him again. You can't. Maybe you shouldn't. "You're dreaming. You're only dreaming."

You linger, frozen, until the hand finally relaxes, dropping from around your arm. Then you slip away across the floor faster than any shadow. You don't leave the door ajar, you don't look back one final time as it closes behind you, because all of a sudden there's something strange burning you up from the inside—something so terrible and captivating that there can be no name for it.

You make it back to the hall before your knees buckle and you sink back down, your arm cradled close to your chest. The ache you feel is something altogether separate—your heart flutters once, wildly, then drops like a stone.

You just wanted to see him. That was all. But then he reached out in his sleep, and the outline of five long fingers tattooed itself in white against the white of your skin.

It almost seemed he'd been dreaming of you.


	5. Belief

**A/N: **For prompt #14 – Hold. Ph34r the cutesy child-dialogue. Gwahahaha.

Semi-OOC on the grounds that they're not who they are quite yet. Beg your pardon.

That aside, this drabble sort of ties in with one or two more that will follow, in which the evolution of the _Do you trust me _question will be poked and prodded at. Just so you know. XD They can be read as standalone pieces, though.

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**5 - Belief**

_There is a question he's never asked her._

_He is twelve when he discovers that question for the first time, and she only nine, and Radiant Garden alive with children's voices. He doesn't yet know enough to understand how important it is. Or was. Or will be._

"Squall?"

It begins when he hears her calling from across the library, empty but for the two of them, but it takes a little while before he can even recognize it as _her _voice; the nerves have stretched it into something so high and thin it nearly cracks trying to form his name.

"Squall!"

It takes longer still for him to find her. His eyes dart from one side of the room to the other, searching, finding nothing until she calls him a second time and he realizes the sound comes from above. That's when he sees her, clinging to the shelf a ways above his head. He has to clear his throat a little before she speaks—there's no sense in letting on that, however fleetingly, he is as fearful as she must be.

"...How did you get all the way up there?"

Wide green eyes blink down as he approaches.

"Um, I was looking for a book," she mumbles, in that same small voice, the blood receding from her cheeks with every word. "Up high, and the ladder's all the way on the other side… I'm not strong enough to roll it back here, so I c-climbed, but I can't get back d-down."

"Oh."

He regards her in silence for a few moments after that, his young mind weighing exasperation and pity by turns—would it be a little _too_ mean to point out that if she had _asked _him to roll the ladder over in the first place, like a sensible person, she wouldn't _have_ this problem?—but he must notice. He must notice the tremors, and the sweat on her forehead, and the ache in her arms, tingling and electric. So he doesn't think for too long.

"Jump."

The statement startles her so much that she nearly lets go.

"W-what?!"

"Jump," he repeats with utmost seriousness, although his heart comes up into his throat as he does so. "Do I have to spell everything out for you?"

She hesitates, swallows hard. "It's such a long way down."

"Of course it is, stupid." His arms feel odd suddenly—too long, too spindly, too unreliable—and he's not sure that he can trust them at all. But she doesn't need to know that; he just has to hold them out and make it look like he believes them. Then, maybe, she will. "I'll catch you. What do you think I'm standing here for?"

_Do you trust me?_

"I am not stupid!" she screeches back. (Is the unexpected flare of temper a good sign, or isn't it?) _"You're _stupid! Can you even—"

_Do you trust me?_

"Look," he snaps, but without any real animosity. It's important that she believes him. He knows that, even if he doesn't know (at this point, at least) just _how_ important it is. "If you think you can wait a little longer, I'll go get the ladder _all the way on the other side."_

It works.

"SQUALL, YOU EVIL MEANIE! Don't just— I—"

_Don't leave me! _he thinks he hears; he has to be imagining it. He tries to smile up at her—tries, and only just succeeds.

"Won't be able hold on? It's okay. I won't let you get hurt."

"…You'd better promise!"

_I promise, _he almost says. But the funny thing about that is there isn't _time_ to promise, because pretty much as soon as he hears the word, the hesitation dissolves, she jumps—

_Trust me._

And she falls through the distance between them, the weight of her knocking the wind from his chest before he can even blink. He stumbles backward a few steps, tries to right himself before the momentum sends him crashing to the floor—much to his own astonishment, he does. His hold stays strong.

"Aerith?"

Her thin arms are locked around his neck now, her face buried in his shoulder, all her small form still wracked with shivers.

"Aerith? You okay?"

"The book I wanted!" she gasps into his shirt. "I forgot it!"

It takes a little while for him to realize that she is laughing.


	6. Disenchantment

**A/N: **For prompt #8 - Fire.

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**6 - Disenchantment**

The stars are going out.

While Yuffie twists in her arms and shudders and cries until no more water will come, until pain becomes exhaustion and burns out into sleep, still Aerith smiles. Still she smiles, though deep space rolls past the glass of the windows and Cid's ship is only a pinprick in the undulating gloom, and the lights are coming down hard and white and hurting her eyes and despite that she can still smell the smoke, see Radiant Garden burning right down to a cinder.

Cid passes by on his way back to the cockpit. He spreads one blanket over the girl in her lap, slips another round her shoulders in a sympathetic sort of hurry and still she smiles, because she knows she should feel something—anything, anything, she hates this but she can't do _anything—_although what she really feels is nothing at all.

The stars are going out; she looked straight into a few of them, during their last bursts of brilliance.

---

She doesn't know him, not right away. She doesn't recognize him when the door slides open and he half-walks, half-falls into the small cabin, slumps against the far wall. His hair is dark and matted with soot from the fires; she doesn't see at first that the dark that covers his face and drips down his shirt is different.

Then she sees… something. Something pushes her to her feet, prodding her toward him and down on her knees until she can see past the blood—that's what it turns out to be, see, it's only just begun to dry—and the dirt and into his eyes.

_Less like eyes now, more like fogged glass._

She brushes the brief, flickering sensation away—in the end she is able to manage a smile for him while her hand searches in the pocket of her dress for the handkerchief that cannot still be there. Yet it is, and he is sitting in front of her, and the hand that reaches out to cup his face is steady, too steady.

"Squall…?"

He says nothing in reply. He does try to return her smile as she cleans away the stain, but the rake of ebony claws is still fresh in his mind, among other things, and he forgets.

She knows this—she's already begun to feel.

---

"You got lucky, you know."

Her speech is careful, her voice light. She wonders if he believes it, even for a second—and realizes with a bitter pang that he probably doesn't, he probably sees what glares through the cracks, because he always has. Even then, before, when it didn't matter.

"An inch or two more to either side and you would have lost an eye."

Even now, when nothing else seems to matter quite as much.

"It's probably going to leave a scar… Why couldn't you have been more careful?"

She goes on like it's nothing, like it's nothing and will continue to be so tomorrow when they wake up somewhere other than home, like it's nothing and the nothingness is as empty as she is.

She thinks she would hate him for it, if she could. But she can't. Not when they've both fallen through the fire and he looks at her with his glass eyes and his vacant face and his smile that is no longer there and never will be again, ever.

"You know." He speaks, his voice a harsh whisper that must hurt him as it comes out into the air. "You don't have to."

_You don't have to smile for me._

She hears what he doesn't say, but she does. Still she does, and still his eyes see right on through. And it isn't fair, because they're not the same eyes.

_If I don't, _she wants to retort, _no one will._

---

He's no longer who he was. That much she can see—that part was burned away and suddenly he is too much of everything and too much of nothing. Too many questions and faces and voices—she knows. Too much _where _and _why _and _who _and _how can this be_, and nowhere to retrace his steps to because home is an impossibility now. All they have is each other.

There is one question he's never asked her, though she remembers him trying many times when they were children. She is still child enough to slip her hand into his, lean her head against his shoulder and hope that he'll believe her when she says she knows the answer, because she knows how important it is. And was. And will be.

_It's all right, _she wants to tell him. _I believe in you; I trust you. It's going to be all right._

But then she imagines his voice, his harsh, burning whisper that it isn't, Aerith, it isn't, and it's all his fault, he wasn't strong enough and now there are some shadows her light will never be able to touch. That is when both the answer and the question are lost.

She can only close her eyes against the glare and ask despairingly, without words, _Light? What light?_


	7. Enough

**A/N: **Here's the last of the unofficial 'trust' trilogy, written for prompt #17 – Garden

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**7 - Enough**

Why does she have to play the saint? Of all of them, why is she the only one brave—or crazy—enough to try growing a garden in a flowerpot?

Well, why not? Traverse Town changes day after day from this to that color, this to that angle—and look at what they have had to become. They are lost, lost and mismatched so they match the world around them as it becomes both more and less like "that one place." Lost, and even at this stage no one has tried to _find_, not really. Only her.

He sighs, and suddenly feels a lot like the world's greatest failure. She always _was _the one with the green thumb.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

He doesn't raise his eyes to her face, though he can very well pick out every detail from where he stands. He looks instead at the irises—two, three small blooms on wan and slender stems, cradled in the palm of her hand. They seem to be as tired as he feels, but he has to admit—they're a lovely shade of blue.

"Nothing."

"I see," she says, and goes on conversationally. "I'm trying to grow them like we used to. In the old garden, remember?"

He wonders if she does see. "Yeah."

"Do you ever think about it?" Aerith inquires of him, petals slanting smooth against her fingers. Leon doesn't need her to tell him what 'it' means.

"Do you?"

"Of course I do." Her tone suggests it is obvious; he should know that there _is _no other answer. "Always."

"I thought we were beyond caring anymore."

"Not about each other. Not about home." She pauses to contemplate her flowers. "It hurts, but we can't lose it. It's kind of… kind of impossible, you know?"

He knows how impossible it is.

Once he might have taken her by the shoulders, shaken her, struggled for the question he has never been able to ask. He might have told her the truth then, but the walls came down and the world outside rushed in to interpose. Before he realized it, a year and another had come and gone. He had lost both the question and the answer besides, and left her to bear the brunt of everything. Sometimes he still hears the accusations in the words she has always been careful not to say.

He finds himself scowling at the thought. She should know better than to put her trust in him—he cannot be her rock. He has always wanted her to see that, more than anything, and yet…

"You might want to put those," he nods his head at her flowerpot-garden, "on the sill, where they'll catch the sun."

He is sorry he was never enough. He is sorry that he can't be, in spite of everything.

But she is there to smile at him, gently, as though to say that it's all right—he _is _enough, _they _are enough, and _you're still such an idiot, Squall_. It's at times like this that he almost believes her.

"Do you like them?"

"Sure."

"I'm glad." Aerith inclines her head as he shrugs; his indifference is so badly feigned that she can look clear through it. "They're not much, but I thought they'd do nicely. For us, you know?"

He was never cut out to be anyone's hero, not even hers. Least of all hers. But, time and time again, she makes him think he isn't completely opposed to the idea of _trying._


	8. Nuances

**A/N: **For prompt #21 – Laughter. Because Leon has a sense of humor. Sort of.

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**8 - Nuances**

"Won't you ever learn to be careful? I'm getting really tired of taking care of you."

Twilight glances off the sparkle of green eyes, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol held in one slender hand.

"I never asked you to."

A suspicious glance—then a hiss as alcohol and cotton meet broken skin, cleaning away the blood before it has time to dry.

"Well, you don't know any better, do you? You've got to learn not to overextend yourse—did that hurt?"

Brief silence.

"Of course not."

Laughter, clear and chiming, because she doesn't know which question he meant to answer, and perhaps prefers it that way.

"Sure. Right."

A heavy sigh. Shoulders drop in no less than utter exasperation.

"I wish you wouldn't do that—"

Back and shoulders tensing, bloodless fingers gripping the arm of a chair.

"Oh, suck it up already, you baby." Gently, though. "Hold still."

Another dab of the cotton ball, another hiss, the flicker of motion, and hand meets hand.

"I _am _still; you're using too much. It's just a scratch, for god's sake—give me that. I can do it myself."

The bottle of alcohol changing hands once, then once again.

"Just let me, and it's _not _just a scratch. If I leave you alone you're not going to do anything about it until it festers… You could end up ruining more than just your sword arm."

Another sigh. He knows she means that in more ways than one.

"You should stop fretting like that. It's bad for you."

Again, the echo of her laughter; the brief thought of his that it's a beautiful sound.

"And going off on your own in battle all the time isn't bad for _you?"_

"That's… different, I'll have you know." The words come out not-quite-right, die into silence until a better set is found. "…Why do you care so much?"

"Silly." Warmth rises over the question. "Do you think we want to lose you to something so small?"

He hears the duality in her meaning, the unspoken _I,_ and almost laughs along. Almost—because he bites his lip against it as he looks up into her eyes.

"You worry too much."

But he does laugh in the end, softly, the taste in his mouth at once strange and wonderful—because what she says is true. Because what she _means_ is truer.

"Because you have too many bad habits—don't _laugh _at me, Leon."

She might well become the _worst_ of all his bad habits, and she probably knows that.

"Who says I'm laughing at _you?"_


	9. Fragmentarily

**A/N: **I've been off my groove for quite a while. But it's been raining a lot, and that usually makes the mental wheels turn, so... Yeah. This was written for prompt #2 - Rain, though you probably already knew that.

I actually wrote this chapter as three separate drabbles with a central theme that ties them all together. There was a certain, err, progression I wanted to chart, if you know what I mean. -kicks Leon-

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**9 - Fragmentarily**

Early summer and you'd just turned ten. You had no idea what love was, but remember when it rained?

It came down hard and fast, stinging your eyes and ruining the daisy chain she'd threaded into her hair. (Close your eyes and you still see petals spill through brown locks, down the front of a pink dress going dark and water-stained.)

You had your jacket off before she could protest, threw it over her head and bolted like you'd never see tomorrow—but you never let go of her hand. You never left her behind, even for a single moment.

--

Midsummer. She was fifteen and you all grown up—well, almost. Remember when it rained? You _still _had no idea what love was.

It caught you out walking in the First District—big drops nearly the size of your fist that had you both soaked to the skin in seconds. But you didn't run this time, because the town sprawled off in all directions, and at that time you just didn't know it all that well. (Because water makes cloth cling to the skin, and her hips and her waist slanted so strangely under cloth and water alike that you had to look away, suddenly embarrassed and unsure.)

You could only reach for her hand and stalk over to the nearest overhang as though someone had lit a fire on the cobblestones under your feet, while oceans fell from the sky.

The real miracle is that she still had a smile for you, as she combed loose strands back from her face. A smile. A whisper that _The rain should let up pretty soon _and _Thanks for not leaving me behind._

A feather-light, near-unreal kiss to your cheek. You didn't turn your head so it fell on your lips.

--

Remember when it rained? You'd grown up properly by then, and the days were growing cold. You'd gone to sit out on the porch to make the most of the last warmth. The drizzle had come down in gentle percussion on the awning above your heads.

_Listen, Leon. Music._

Her eyes drifted closed; her hand in yours was warm and dry, and no longer quite as small as you remembered.

_Sometimes being old friends is hard, isn't it? _she said, after a few moments' pause. You didn't know what she meant, not really—you couldn't think to answer with anything other than silence or _Good night._

_What if I love you? _you finally asked, in a whisper. You'd only begun to understand what love was.

…_What if? _she said. And you still remember the smile playing on her lips as you kissed her, the raindrops ringing in your ears—music.


	10. Innovation

**A/N: **For prompt #9 – Stone. Crack!drabble in which Aerith discovers her long-buried artistic side.

I just really, really needed to write something amusing and get it out of my system. X.x I will redeem myself someday. Someday soon. -crash-

**

* * *

**

**10 - Innovation**

"You," says Leon, in the most solemn, reproving tone he can muster, "are exploiting me."

He can do nothing to stop the strange taste that comes into his mouth when he says this, because Aerith looks up, reaching innocuously for the gray tube on the table as she smiles.

"You shouldn't say things like that," says Aerith, in an equally solemn, reproving tone—but with an undercurrent of amusement that may or may not be entirely wholesome, "where people can hear and misunderstand."

"What people hear and misunderstand is as much your fault as it is mine." Frustration pervades the words, especially since he's long since given up on struggling against his restraints. "Considering that _you_ shooed everyone out of the house in order to do this little project of yours in private."

"Some things just aren't meant to be seen until they're finished, okay?" She laughs. A glint comes into her eye for mere half-seconds before it's gone again. "Besides, how can you say that whatever misunderstandings come into our friends' heads are entirely false, hmm?"

A pregnant pause.

"…You're _evil."_

"Oh, shush." Aerith squeezes a dollop of gray onto her pallet, returns the tube to the table and begins to thin the paint with water—humming all the while, as with most things. "You're just jealous that I'm discovering my long-buried artistic side… Turn your head back to the right, please?"

Leon complies; the cramps are so bad that his bones creak as he turns his head, and that's only from the neck upward. Resistance has long been futile.

That's not to say he no longer gets any satisfaction from complaining.

"Remind me why it is that this artistic side of yours isn't," he cringes, "buried any longer."

"I couldn't _help _it, Leon." She fills in the sketched pencil lines with paint—gunblade in one upraised hand, moogle plushie held in the crook of the other arm—and draws back from the canvas, eyeing it critically a moment before deciding that the moogle's pom-pom isn't the _right _shade of red yet. "Sora's always sending us such nice postcards. The last one had so much meaning… Plus, I've been so _bored…_ I thought I'd try to recreate it for us, you know?"

"Mm," is all she gets by way of a reply. Aerith may or may not know the question that lances through his head, leaving him with a faintly bruised ego: _How could she possibly be _bored?!

At any rate, Leon thinks he'll be writing a rather lengthy letter to Sora when this is over, discussing the evils of postcards and why they ought to be declared dangerous contraband in Radiant Garden. And if Aerith sees his face change at this thought, she doesn't comment, only rattles on with infallible cheer as she works on the pom-pom.

"And you were the only one I could ask! You're the perfect model for this sort of thing. The Statue of Radiant Garden's Liberty… Oops, don't lower your arm yet! Is the spell wearing off already?" She sighs, flicks the brush in what looks like an harmless gesture—pity that he, at least, has learned that if she puts her mind to it she can be anything but. _"Stopga._"

He can feel his muscles wanting to tear from being held still for so long. The immobility that flows back into them comes more as a relief than anything. Of course, it'll be complete hell when she finishes up (which, he estimates, should be only slightly before the end of the worlds, with that kind of attention to detail) and he'll be able to start moving again. Complete hell—unless she finds it in her to show him _some _kindness in the aftermath, but that's a whole other story. It's not really one to be discussed, either, where people can hear and misunderstand.

"I hope you're not intending to show this to anyone."

"Are you kidding me? Of course I'm showing it to _everyone!" _The brush pauses awhile; she can't decide whether the curtain-robes she's put on painted Leon should be green. Or purple. Or blue. Or even floral, for that matter. "Maybe I'll even get Cloud to sculpt it into the cliff for me, next time he visits. You know, the one near the castle—agh, Leon! Stop making faces; I might just end up painting them, and then how will you look?"

"Sorry." He has the decency to appear just a little sheepish. "I was trying to remember why I loved you."

"'Scuse me?" The brush swishes in that same seemingly harmless gesture, this time leveled at his head. "Now, that's just mean. You shouldn't say things like that. _Stopga."_

Leon doesn't complain very much after that.

"Now, if you're a good boy, you'll be able to talk again within the hour."


	11. Trust

**A/N: **Halfway through, yay! This one is for prompt #19 – Eye.

Look, it's Cloud! -shifty eyes- Yeah, I took my sweet time trying to write him in because I wasn't sure my inner slasher was going to let him do what he was supposed to. But whaddaya know. I'd been interested in this dynamic for some time, with the three of them as a strange not-quite-triangle, and it survived.

The girl's kind of oblivious, as it were. Oh well.

* * *

**11 – Trust**

"What are you doing outside at this hour?" you ask, stepping onto the porch. The question would have marked the beginnings of a conversation, but then the door closes softly on the warm light at your back.

Cloud says nothing. Cloud looks at you over one shoulder with lightning-bright eyes, and you can read the truth in the blue—and he knows that you know, so he says nothing.

"…Taking off, eh?"

Cloud nods, and then inclines his head almost questioningly toward the house, where the windows have begun to darken one by one.

"Asleep," you tell him, noncommittally. "Or they will be, soon enough. I'll walk with you to the border."

That's that. You set off side by side without speaking, because it's not an offer or a favor or a command—and neither of you can be bothered to figure out _what_ it is, or _why _it is when it wasn't before, because there are just some things for which no one should seek definitions.

"You don't want her to be there when you go away again, is that it?"

He knows what you mean, and you know that he knows, and that is enough. It's a long walk to the border, so you're more than willing to stay—to match his long strides step for step until he's managed to think of a good enough answer for why he insists on doing this to her _again. _To you, to all of you, but to her most of all. _Again._

"Will it hurt her?" he asks, at last.

But maybe he can see no answer. Maybe answering you with more questions is the only thing his life has taught him how to do. That's why he'd rather say nothing; that's why even you are pulled into his silence, for a while, as the road wears away under your feet.

"Of course, whether she's there to see it or not."

The words sting as they go, leaving your mouth dry and a million knots twisted into your heart of hearts. And still Cloud says nothing, so you can't name them Rage or Pity or Understanding or even Resentment—because both of you think that if you look over your shoulders you'll see her dreaming and oblivious, and then everything will be changed, all changed. _Again._

"…Has she been happy?"

_Happy?_

It's at this moment that all the knots pull tight, and you want to stop and make him stop and shake him until he sees that he's taking her happiness with him, out into the worlds. That no matter how quiet and kind and accepting she is, that no matter how much he doesn't deserve her, you're just a poor replacement and will always be just a poor replacement, and if he still fails to see that then you are lost, all of you. All lost.

But you don't do any of that, because once before—before everything—you might have called him _friend._

"She's doing her best," is what you tell him, noncommittally. "Like all of us."

Cloud looks at you over one shoulder with lightning-bright eyes, and you wonder if he can read the truth in the storms of your own—no matter how you try to hide the burning, tucking the lamp under a bushel in your heart of hearts.

"You're taking care of her, then?"

Of course you are; it's all you've ever known how to do. But you don't tell him that, because he knows; you know that he knows. What matters now is what he decides to _do, _knowing.

"I'm… trying," you say, eyes stubbornly averted, pace quickening. "I'm trying."

_Like all of us. Like you should—you could fix everything. Why the _hell_ do you keep running away?_

"Will you keep trying?" Two paces behind and suddenly he draws up to your shoulder—_I can still match you, Leon._ "Will you keep caring for her?"

The end is drawing near, two sets of footsteps on the stone like the rumble of thunder, invisible barriers growing thin. The universe is close enough to touch, now.

"Until you come back, you mean."

You stop. You think the momentum will carry him out and away, but he stops, too—and faces you, and nods yes.

"And always, if I don't. Swear." A pause before he goes on, "You're the only one I can ask. Hold her in trust for me."

The words are everything and nothing. You stand silently awhile, look at him, part of you still aching to tell him the truth. But you don't, because he holds her happiness cupped like water in his hands and you can do nothing about that—try though you do, love her though you will, until you die and not a single second less.

"Until you come back to stay, then. Not before. In the meantime, I don't care where you go."

"Fine," says Cloud. Nothing more, not even _thank you _or _goodbye._

You nod your head, offer your hand for him to clasp briefly before he walks back out into the worlds. And you can read in his eyes and in the hesitant pressure of his fingers that once before, not long ago at all, he might have called you _friend._

'_Hold her in trust for me,' _he said. He won't be the one to watch her face fall in the morning as she sees the absence, as she tries to hide it from you and pretend for all your sakes that your presence is enough. Bless her heart.

He goes. You return, your mouth set in a grim, thin line as the road home wears away under your feet.

'_Hold her in trust for me,' _he said. Easy.


	12. Twofold

**A/N: **For prompt #20 – Breath. Oohh, lookie. Prose poem. O.O I was sort of writing in white heat with this one; I don't know that it came out a hundred percent smooth. But I did mean for it to be sort of raggedy and short of breath and kind of confused in places. Overall I'm not unhappy with the way things turned out. Poor Aerith. XD

Cloud is hard. Having Cloud around even as an idea is hard. -dies-

* * *

**12 - Twofold**

If there is one thing  
I would never wish on anyone—  
never ever—it's not knowing.  
It's _waiting,_  
watching hawk-eyed at  
gates  
and stretches of road  
for absent faces,  
restless and unsure.  
It's looking for  
something, and finding  
in its place  
nothing.  
See, there are puzzle pieces  
missing, absent faces still,  
even here,  
even though we said—  
not long ago, not long ago at all—  
that at last we all of us  
were home.  
And, sometimes, it all presses  
down so heavily—  
too heavily  
for even our combined strengths  
to hold together. Then whatever  
appearances of peace and home and  
happiness we had,  
until that breaking moment,  
die.

---

I wait,  
and watch  
and do not know; I never know.  
I have a place for it, even—for all this  
waiting  
and watching  
and not-knowing—where  
blue stone rears up into cliffs  
and crags and  
remnants of radiance.  
Here in the hollow heart of my  
Hollow Bastion,  
my home—  
blue rock faces.  
And I smooth my skirt beneath me,  
and sit  
and watch and wait.  
It's kind of funny,  
actually,  
how my heart jumps,  
how my breath catches with every  
bootfall I hear coming  
up the winding path,  
with every face anticipated but not yet  
seen—and I said  
I could see everything from here!  
It's kind of funny,  
but also kind of sad.

---

Leon.  
Leon's bootfalls.  
Leon's form—dark, dark lines  
against the pale, pale sky.  
Leon's long shadow on  
blue stone.  
I let the breath  
leave me, incline my head  
and smile hello, and swallow  
the taste of disappointment—  
because it's a horrible thing to feel  
and not fair,  
not fair to him at all.  
Leon has always been  
with me.  
Leon has never  
left,  
never gone where I  
have no hope of following.  
Never ever.  
And so I incline my head  
and smile hello, and  
will with all my heart  
that there be not one bit  
of distance in my face.

---

"_You're not still working,  
are you?  
Keep me company for a few?"_  
And he does, folding himself down,  
tempest-gray eyes softened  
almost in a smile,  
though his face is set—always—in stone.  
"_Not working; not  
now that the day's nearly  
gone,  
though maybe I'll walk  
the evening watch.  
I just wanted—"_  
here he stops, glances  
sidelong at me, and  
whatever he meant to say is  
gone  
by the time he looks away.  
"_I just wanted to see how you were."_  
And I smile.  
It takes a few moments  
of held breath and effort,  
but I manage a smile for him  
in the end.  
I hope—I only hope  
it tells him I am more than well.  
I only hope  
he believes me.

---

"_No Cloud again today,  
I see," _says Leon,  
head bent toward the road  
that winds up to where we sit,  
brow creased, rue in  
his eyes. _"I wonder  
how long he plans to make you  
wait."_  
A long, slow sigh—  
as though the air were  
being drawn out,  
out,  
out of him too—  
and suddenly he's gone far,  
far away from me,  
though he sits close enough to touch.  
"_How long  
do you plan to keep  
waiting?" _he asks, still  
turned away as though  
addressing the cliffs,  
voice stretched wire-thin.  
"_What if this hero  
of yours  
doesn't come back?"_  
And I don't understand  
why,  
all of a sudden,  
the cliffs have become easier company  
than me.

---

I shouldn't be surprised, really, that he doesn't  
believe me. He never  
believes me, always sees  
right on through—as though  
I were made of glass, and had no  
need of breathing.  
"_What if?" _I say,  
cheer dying in my voice  
before even being  
born.  
"_Don't be angry!"_  
Sure enough,  
my breath again grows short  
and thin  
and useless.  
"_Why shouldn't I be?"_  
Leon tells the cliffs.  
"_What if I'm tired  
of cleaning up after  
my friend the fool, Aerith?  
What if I'm  
tired? And what if  
I think you are an even greater fool  
if you don't see—"_  
And abruptly he stops,  
and breathes and glances at me sidelong,  
and all I can read in his look  
is  
_Aerith, I a__m sorry.  
I'm sorry._

---

And I cannot, for the  
life of me, understand  
what it is he thinks  
he should be sorry for—  
when it ought to be  
me  
making amends,  
me  
reaching out and trying  
and trying and trying  
to close the distance that yawned  
wide as the blue stone chasm  
between us  
in only the space of  
a few breaths.  
It should be  
me,  
my hand on his arm,  
my head on his shoulder,  
and all of me trying  
and trying and trying to  
say  
so many things.

---

_I'm sorry,  
Leon—my Leon, my guardian  
and champion and dearest  
friend of my heart.  
I'm sorry.  
But I see. I do see.  
You've never left me alone—not  
once.  
How could I not see?  
It's just…_  
But, sure enough,  
my breath grows short  
and thin  
and useless,  
and kills the words.

---

"_Look.  
You can stay here;  
I'll go on ahead. I'll keep a lamp  
lighted for you,  
but try not to come back  
too late."_  
One long, lean hand  
touches my shoulder,  
and mutely I wonder  
if in my own eyes he sees  
absent faces—one absent face  
superimposed  
upon his own reflection,  
and that's why he doesn't  
look.  
Last of all I hear bootfalls  
on the road, winding  
home to nothing but the  
waiting,  
the not-knowing that weighs  
too heavily even for our  
combined strengths to hold  
together.


	13. Perspective

**A/N: **Oh, lord, an AU. Lucky number 13, for prompt #3 – Sun.

This one was a little hard to wrap my head around. It's kind of weird to view their relationship from a detached and not-exactly-complete perspective. But it was fun, so I guess it's all good. XD

* * *

**13 - Perspective**

I remember the girl my brother fell in love with.

I even remember what meeting her for the first time was like. Yeah, I remember all that really well—right down to what she was wearing, and what I was thinking, and what color the trees all over town had begun to turn. But she wasn't the girl my brother fell in love with then, of course. At least, I didn't think so. It took a really long time before anybody started thinking of her as that.

Anyway, that first time that everything started clicking into place… It was after school, on a Monday afternoon in early fall. I remember, because when I closed my eyes and breathed in I could still smell the summer, but the air was already beginning to get that nice nip and nearly all the leaves had gold edges over the green.

I remember sitting at the bus stop, as usual—I didn't have to take the bus home, but Leon was always complaining about what a bitch it was to find me on school grounds whenever he came to pick me up, and it'd make it easier for him to find me this way. I remember having my discman on my lap pouring some of Dad's old jazz into my ear—though I'd never tell him I actually _liked _that stuff, he'd never let me hear the end of it—and bopping my head back and forth to the tune. I remember wondering what was taking my brother so long, that hypocrite, but _don't the leaves look so pretty?_

I remember the look on my face when he finally showed. And not just because he was late—by five minutes, but for my obsessive-compulsive freak of a brother that's five _hours—_but because, well. He had a _girl _with him. And I remember having to force my jaw closed, because, well. My brother. Leon. With a _girl._

It was all really low-key. That might have been what threw me off. I mean, I don't remember them doing any of that really gross stuff that couples usually do, which might have been because they weren't technically a couple then. I think. I don't really know when all the couple blah started, but anyway. I'm just going off on one and missing the point. The point is that he wasn't holding her hand, she wasn't hanging onto his arm and giggling like some kind of idiot, and they didn't brush shoulders as they walked, not then.

I don't remember if they were even _talking, _actually. Even then, it was kind of like they didn't need to. Weird.

---

I remember a lot of things. I remember noticing her hair was the same color as the trees would be in a couple of weeks—this really soft, nice gold-brown that you just don't see on the heads of normal people. I remember she had on a pale pink sundress, this long flowy thing that made ripples when she moved, and a red cardigan over that, and a pink ribbon keeping her long braid back, and my god, everything about her was just so _pretty _I couldn't look at her without feeling like a church mouse.

I remember thinking she looked like a greeting card model, if there was such a thing, and then _Oh god. That's a lot of pink._

The two of them drew up to me, and Leon introduced me to this strange creature as _my sister, _and I remember how she gave me her hand to shake and how these little silver bracelets jingled around her wrist when she did. I remember feeling even more like a church mouse then, with my rough palms and bitten nails, because even her hands were so smooth and graceful and pale and perfect—because in spite of everything there wasn't anything artificial about her when she nodded hello.

"I'm Aerith," was what she said. "But your brother wasn't polite enough to tell me what your name was…?"

I'm pretty good at reading people, mind you. I can tell a mile off when people are up to something, or just faking politeness, or toadying up to you when they want brownie points with someone you know. That might have been what weirded me out so much about Aerith at first, how it didn't seem like she was _up to _anything.

"Oh, it's Yuffie," was what I said. Then I gulped a little.

I remember her saying it was her pleasure, and it was nice meeting me and she should be heading home now, she lived on so-and-so street and her mother would be home from work soon. Then she touched me on the arm and turned away, towards Leon—I remember how she smiled at him, how this really bright, warm light kind of welled up and pooled in her green eyes, like she had the sun inside her.

I remember her thanking him for walking with her partway, and my brother's mouth twisting the tiniest bit in what might or might not have been a smile in return. But then I blinked and she'd already gone, and Leon was already setting off in the other direction. His strides were so long I had to jog to catch up.

We didn't say anything, all through the short walk home. I sneaked a look at his face, though—stony as usual. I remember thinking I must have imagined it.

---

I remember trying to grill him about it while we were making dinner that night—and failing miserably, of course. I'd kind of been expecting to be shot down before even starting, but you know. Had to try.

"So, how'd you meet her?"

At least I had the decency to keep my voice low. Dad was watching TV in the next room, and the walls had ears. But Leon just gave me that look of his that said he didn't have time to indulge his baby sister right now, I should go back to peeling potatoes… then he squared his shoulders and turned deliberately away from me.

"Leon!"

I heard him sigh audibly, turn back. _"What?"_

"How did you _meet _her?" I asked him again, but I had gone back to my potato. Just so he didn't have anything to use against me this time. He did give me a dirty look, though.

"…College."

"I know _that." _I remember just how much I wanted to throw up my hands. Or clock him over the head with the potato. Whichever. "But, I mean… _how _did you meet her? And, more importantly, what _is she?"_

He blinked. I hated it when my brother acted like his head was full of dishwater on purpose. I still do. "What do you mean, 'what is she?' She's a person, Yuffs." He probably got the message from my expression, though, because he added in a whisper, "She's just someone I met. We have a couple of classes together. Why are you making this such a big deal?"

"Because she's a _girl! _You don't… I've never seen… And I've known you for sixteen years! You don't walk girls home—even partway—you're such an insensitive boor. For a while dad and I thought you didn't even _like _girls! But then you come around with this flower princess and you're not even going to tell me who she is or why she—"

_Wow, that came out wonderfully. Good go, Yuffie. He'll really tell you everything now._

I remember how my brother's hand came up and chucked me gently under the chin, silencing me, and his shoulders squared again and all he'd say was, "You ought to look at that potato, not at me. Do you want to lose a finger?"

I didn't get to ask any more, because dad picked that moment to decide he was hungry and start shouting—good-naturedly, of course—for we useless excuses of spawn to hurry up with bloody dinner.

I remember being really, really frustrated. But not much else.

---

I remember the next few days. Or weeks. Or months. The one thing I have a hard time remembering is how much time actually passed.

I remember waiting at the bus stop every afternoon when classes let out, hiding behind the pages of a random pocketbook I had no real interest in, sneaking glances at the street out of the corner of my eye for my brother and his girl. I remember how infuriated I was because sometimes she came with him and sometimes she didn't, and there didn't seem to be a particular pattern but I was absolutely sure stupid Leon was just doing it to keep me from knowing too much.

All my nerves went haywire whenever I saw them turn the corner together, taking little notes in my head about what she was wearing and if he'd actually taken time to fix himself up nicely that day, and how closely together they walked, and whether or not they were talking and if he ever smiled when she laughed. But then whatever it was would always dissolve when they saw me; their choreography always changed when my brother nodded in my direction and lifted his head and walked a little faster, when Aerith smiled a different smile and followed a short way behind him instead of beside, and the sun inside her became something only he could see.

Most of all, I remember how that change wasn't the least bit sudden or awkward or jarring. Not like glass breaking. Like acting. Like they'd been acting for years.

I remember almost believing she really _was _just someone he'd met… and then thinking nothing he'd done in all the sixteen years I'd known him had ever irritated me quite this much.

I remember tailing him pretty obsessively during weekends, even—I always found some excuse to head out with him on as many errands as I could. I'm pretty sure he was sort of on to me, but he never did anything about it other than sigh and refuse to answer any questions I threw at him that had anything to do with you-know-who. So I stopped asking.

I remember running into Aerith once or twice like that, at the grocery store or whatever other place, and telling myself each time that I was going to draw her aside for a little bit to tell her what was on my mind, that I didn't mean to be nosy and I had no doubt she was a great girl but my brother was being an insensitive boor and all this secrecy was just killing me and _just what the hell are the two of you on about? _Except my brother would send me off before I could even open my mouth, to get something ridiculous that we probably didn't even _need. _So I missed… like a million chances.

I remember hiding behind the vegetable stand a million times and watching them while they did the proper shopping and walked and talked as much as they could while I was supposedly away. And if I was lucky I'd see her trace a hand along his arm, or him tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear when he thought no one was looking. Then she'd laugh, and he'd almost smile, and the tableau would actually hold for a few seconds more than usual.

---

I remember wondering a lot how he managed to hide it so well when we were at home—how he stayed so _normal _in front of me and Dad, when there was this girl who lived a couple of streets down who had the sun inside her and walked brushing shoulders with him when no one was looking and knew how to make him smile. Almost. I remember not understanding very much, if at all.

I asked Dad once if he'd ever noticed any difference. Dad grinned and patted my head, took a drag from his cigarette and told me we had already gone over this many, many years ago—Leon was not gay, just withdrawn.

"That's _not_ what I mean!"

I could have died on the spot. But he just took another drag and cocked one eyebrow.

"So what _do _you mean, sweetheart?"

Well, I couldn't exactly answer that, now could I?

"Yuffie, unless you see your big brother with a guy—which, god, I hope you haven't because that'd just be fucking terrible, and I'd never wish that sort of shit on my baby girl, you know?—you shouldn't assume that he's—"

"I already told you, that's _NOT _what I mean!"

I remember resigning myself to a life of curiosity, suspense and stealth. For a few more months at least. Until my idiot brother got the balls to own up to both me and my father that he was not gay. I mean, seeing somebody, and therefore not gay. I remember thinking that the fact that we had ever thought that in the first place was all his fault, because he was such a blasted clam who never expressed one bit of interest in the female species, until now—and now that he did he was keeping that fact under a rock like he'd murdered the girl and not started going out with her.

I think I remember Leon peeking through the doorway when he heard my voice, amusement flickering across his face for maybe a second or two, but I'm not sure if I imagined it or not.

"Dad? Can I have a word?"

---

"Are we doing anything tomorrow night?"

"…Nah, I don't think so. Why d'you ask, son?"

"Would you mind if I had an acquaintance over for dinner?"

"Hmm? An 'acquaintance,' eh? Where from?"

"…Just a friend of mine, someone I have a few classes with. She lives a couple of streets down."

"Ohohoho! 'She!' Absolutely, then! By all means! And why stop at dinner?! Ask the girl to spend the night! Gods above, Leon, don't you have any man—Yuffie?! Yuffie, girl, what's the matter with you?!"

I remember choking on my own spit, rolling onto the floor shortly after, away from any objects I might use to stab my brother for keeping us in the dark.

I remember thinking the jerk owed me big time.


	14. Prelude

**A/N: **Woo, at long last. Terribly rusty after spending the last month bogged down with schoolwork. (That's kind of why Aerith echoes Shakespeare's Ophelia a tiny bit in this one, except not psycho.)

Just something light to heal my brain, for prompt #16 – Lake.

* * *

**14 - Prelude**

Midday sunshine pours down in floods out of the sky, and suddenly everything is tinted around the edges with gold—the fields, the trees, the pebbles on the lakeshore. Even her, little Aerith, who notes all this with a delight that only grows when her bare feet sink to the ankles in soft grass. And she skips through, light in her hair, filling her eyes, dripping down her dress as dew turns the white fabric green at the hem.

She is nearly singing.

But then she stops without warning, turns, lifts a hand to wave at her friend who moves like a long, lean shadow on the edge of the heat haze. He doesn't wave back; she doesn't wait for it. Actually, the lack makes her lips curl upward in a smile, pulls a laugh up from her throat—one, two, three notes, high and sweet—before she turns her back on him and continues to run.

…No, not _run. _Aerith doesn't run, not today. It seems, almost, that she _flies. _And Squall follows, the ground leading up to the lake beginning to slant downward under their feet.

---

Come to think of it, Squall doesn't run either, not really. Of late, Squall walks with long strides, loping like a wolf with miles to travel. Not at all like when he was a boy—because he isn't a boy, not any longer, and his gait's not the only thing that's changed.

As a result, it can be said that Squall doesn't think much of prancing around in the fields anymore. But little Aerith bobs like a feather at the very limit of his vision, half-floating on the breezes, and he carries her sandals tied by their laces, slung over one shoulder. So he does it anyway, more or less. He can't have her tripping on a tree root or something, and hurting herself.

Her laugh-song drifts back to him, a finger's width out of his reach.

---

When at last he catches up with her, she's long since slipped into the lake, fully clothed and drenched to the neck. And she is holding the sky, reflected in the water that pools in her cupped hands.

"Isn't it too sunny for you to swim?"

He skirts the banks, folds himself down onto a rock at the water's edge to be near her. She beams when she sees him set her sandals down, when she notices it certainly is so sunny that he holds his jacket in the crook of his arm.

"It's never _too _sunny, Squall. The water's really nice. Jump in!"

"…I'll pass, thanks." His eyes roll; Aerith only giggles.

"Well, fine. Suit yourself."

Her head disappears under the water. Squall watches, eternally taciturn and awkward and without a single ounce of style.

---

It is hours—or days or years, or only seconds—before her hands and arms come up and reach for him. He pulls her out, onto the rock; it takes almost no effort at all, even weighed down by water.

She sinks down beside him, pillowing her head on his left knee, her hair spread carpet-like across his lap. He lets out a soft sigh at this, leaning back on his hands to keep from running his fingers through it.

They remain so until twilight.

---

"Squall, I want every day to be like this," she tells him, as solemnly as she can muster. Her eyes stare up, up, up, past him—they are full of the sun, sinking red-gold now into the mirror-smooth waters of the lake. "Every day, forever."

He would laugh, but it doesn't come out quite right. Forever? That's the sort of thing you read in children's books, in fairytales—and, terrible as it is, he realizes he's not a child anymore, and she only half so.

"And what if," she continues, reaching up now to catch his face and turn him toward her, so he can see the gravity in her eyes, "I want to be with you forever, huh?"

Squall inclines his head, meets her gaze with a brief half-smile. It doesn't quite fit his mouth, turning out a little odd on his face, but it delights her almost as much as the midday sun.

"How old are you, little princess?"

"Thirteen," says Aerith, hastily adding, "and a few months, for your information!"

Anything to get rid of 'little,' really. He is sixteen and a man now, whether he likes it or not. He knows this.

Again he lets out a sigh. His breath trails warmly across hands that, only a little earlier, held the sky cupped in their palms.

"Do you know how long 'forever' is?"


	15. Cadence

**A/N: **For prompt #5: Stars. Wow, didn't think I'd revisit this one for a while. Maybe I'm not running out of plottage yet.

* * *

**Cadence**

On the night of the first festival Radiant Garden has seen in unnumbered years, the stars are ablaze in the sky. The streets are alive with music, there's dancing in the square… and Leon stands off to the side in his best clothes, folded arms already drawing a map of wrinkles down his shirtfront.

Though Cid tries to ply him with jokes and alcohol, Yuffie with teasing—he's absolutely _sure_ there isn't a male equivalent for "wallflower"—he doesn't think he can help it. He's loved watching this scene play out since before he can remember, fought to restore it for years, but that's always been just for the watching.

He doesn't take part in it, not really; the very idea makes his knees tremble and his palms sweat in their gloves, but he'll be damned before he ever admits it. Cid and Yuffie sigh and shake their heads before they're swallowed up by the revelry, moth-to-flame-like, and Leon watches them go without too many regrets.

It might have been different before, but that was before. Like he might have wished, before, on that half-second of starlight he saw scything across the darkness out of the corner of one eye—but now he just dismisses it as a trick of the light, because things like that don't happen more than once.

"Leon?"

Funny that he manages to hear her call his name from across the square, over all this noise. He only has to lift his head to see the picture of her—her face is pinched into a pretty little frown, almost assuredly at his lack of enthusiasm, and as she starts through the crowd toward him, some part of him moans inwardly that he should have known.

"You don't plan to just sit around all night, do you?"

He'd like to tell her that that was the plan, actually. But then he realizes that in the time it took him to figure that, she has fixed herself in front of him, hair loose on her shoulders, swathed like a fairy in a pale green dress he doesn't think he's ever seen on her before—and the thought comes to him unbidden that, with the lamplight and the stars, she does look just a little bit wonderful.

Some people aren't all that keen on letting him take the easy way out. Things like this aren't supposed to happen more than once, but what can he say if they do?

"Come _on. _We fixed you up so nice." Her eyes are aglow with laughter, though her mouth is still pressed into a line of disapproval at his utterly childish behavior. "Can you _please _not waste it?"

Leon cocks an eloquent eyebrow in response. Aerith's hands draw her exasperation in circles before they come to rest on her hips.

"So you won't dance with me?"

"Aerith." He can't suppress a sigh of his own at this. "You know I don't dance."

"Nonsense. I know for a fact that you dance divinely when you put your mind to it…"

"Aerith…"

"…and even when you don't. And, so help me, I will prove it to you and to everyone who cares to watch." Her fingers close in loose rings around his wrists, and she smiles up at him like it's become too much of a chore to school it into a frown. "Are you with me?"

"Aerith."He knows it's pathetic to be hiding behind this, but now that he feels his resolve beginning to crumble he can't help thinking that in some cases maybe cowardice _is_ the better part of valor, dammit. "Cloud will—"

"Not mind in the least, I promise. I _promise." _Leon sees her eyes dart sideways for a second, searching the crowd for Cloud's profile, picking out the blond spikes, but they swivel quickly back to him, and their gaze is as horribly insistent as ever. "Just one dance, Leon. As friends. For old times' sake. It'll be a fast one, and over before you know it."

_As friends. For old times' sake. Over before you know it. Right._

He'd like to protest—that he's too old for this shit, too tired, that he hasn't danced in gods know how long, that he doesn't want to look ridiculous, that he doesn't want her to look ridiculous with him, because she is radiant and he is nothing short of utterly hopeless…

"Just one," he mutters, after a pause, taking her hands in both of his, praying she won't notice how warm they are through the gloves. "Just one."

Aerith nods and all but floats at his side as he leads her—or is she leading him?—into the crowd. The band strikes up a tune. He lets her go, sweeps one hand towards his chest in what is probably the stiffest and most awkward bow she's ever seen; she bobs him a curtsey, and giggles when he rolls his eyes. When the music swells, they begin.

It's a familiar enough song, one they're both sure they know even if the title's long, long sunken into forgetfulness—one of those halfpenny waltzes they've probably danced to once or twice before, in days when he didn't mind so much. She spins in a pattern of loops and swirls and it's amazing how he can keep up with her, one arm about her waist the entire time, like he actually knows what he's doing—even if he insists to himself that he never did quite have all the steps down.

When the music slows and softens, they end. One final turn, and he catches her like a feather in the circle of his arms. A little voice says that this would be a good time for fireworks, but things like that only happen once, remember?

Aerith smiles when she catches his thoughts—but he trusts her with them, because she can hold them in her hands and they won't break. "It didn't occur to you to wish on that falling star, did it?"

Leon tries to smile back—tries, and almost succeeds, and if the twisting of his lips is still the tiniest bit awkward and unfamiliar and strange, it's not his fault. "...Should it have?"

"Hopeless as ever. Good thing I'm here to make your wishes for you." She lifts one hand to his cheek, tenderly. It's not what he was hoping for, and she knows that, and it pangs a little inside that she knows that, but it's all she can give. "You'll thank me for the practice, someday. Someday, I promise."

He opens his mouth to reply, but misses his chance when the string quartet kicks up again. A deep curtsey, a stiff, low bow—then she's spinning out of his arms and away across the square, like a fairy, or a butterfly, or a shooting star.


	16. Duality

**A/N: **For prompt #13 - Tag. Some of this story turned out to be true. o.o;

* * *

**Duality**

"How long has it been?" she asks, absently kicking her feet against the rock face, hands knotted in her lap. You're just glad her eyes are searching the sky, not your face. "I feel like I've been waiting for so long."

"Mm." Neither a yes nor a no; certainly not a proper answer. But you have no answers when she talks about this anyway—your function is only a matter of presence, and listening. Somehow she manages to convince you that that is enough. "Are you still waiting?"

Her hands smooth out nonexistent wrinkles in her skirt; she leans a little over the edge, so she can see into the ravine, as though the stone had something to contribute to the discussion. And she smiles when you put out a hand to steady her, seemingly without thought.

It's a while before she finally replies.

"…It's very strange," she says at last, so softly you have to lean in close—and you don't like doing that because at this proximity you feel her breathing and suddenly the air becomes sickly warm, but she never gives you a choice. "Sometimes I think I'm still waiting."

"And other times?"

She shrugs a little. "It's like I'm just here to watch the clouds."

"Mm." Neither a yes nor a no. Your hand hasn't moved from her arm, but no one seems to have any objections.

Then she shifts ever so slightly, so her fingers are curled around yours, and it's scary how they fit together without a hitch. "Sometimes I also think…"

You wait, pretending you're not hanging on to every little thing she says.

"Sometimes I also think…" She bites her lip, searching for the right meaning—and you know better than anyone how difficult it must be, because the space between you is like a door straight into the mind, and when you're with her like this you end up losing the words nearly all the time. "If you didn't stay with me, here… No, that's not it."

"I'm listening," you assure her, though your gaze is fixed on the jagged line where the cliffs rear up to meet the sky. You hope she doesn't notice how you can never look into her eyes.

A long silence. You think you might know well enough what she's trying to tell you, but it would be so much easier to just let her say it. When it counts, maybe you'll be able to answer all her questions honestly.

"…Is this," she lifts your joined hands a little, lets them drop again, "strange to you at all?"

"It is," you tell her, "and yet it isn't."

She sighs. "Yes, exactly. And that's what's strange, right? That it isn't?"

"Mm-hmm."

"…So, sometimes I also think… sometimes I almost forget I'm waiting. Almost. I don't really understand it. I've tried, though, it's just very confusing to think about these things. Things like feelings. I can barely figure out what to call them—"

And here you give her fingers a light squeeze, cradling her hand between both of your own, as though it were made of glass. Sometimes you think you don't treat anything as gently as you treat her hands—but then again, you've had a lot of practice handling fragile things.

"It's okay. I don't know what to call this either."

--

He's sitting at the kitchen table, reading the letter. He's been there a long time; he must have read it over at least thrice. While this isn't necessarily a smart thing to do, it's getting dark, and you don't want him going blind—so you take a candle from the mantle, light it with a match, and go to sit beside him.

"You'll hurt your eyes if you keep reading in the dark."

He looks up, you see his eyes sliding into focus—they fix themselves on your face for exactly a second before he turns away.

"You're an angel."

The words warm you inside briefly before they're gone. Then there's nothing to do but sit without speaking while he reads again—he must know at least half the words by heart now—and you wait.

But even waiting becomes very, very difficult after a while. You hope he won't mind when you decide to break the silence.

"…Is it good news?"

"Mm." Neither a yes nor a no. "I don't really know. I might have been expecting it."

You smile at this. "Have you been waiting too?"

"Me?" He looks up, averts his gaze again. You can't help finding it kind of funny that he can never properly look you in the eye—so it seems he's human after all. "Maybe. I think I was. I don't know if I'm as good at it as you are, though."

"…I'm not even that good, actually," you say, after a while. Your hands open and close, open and close, looking for something to do. It's one of your worse nervous habits. "Especially lately. I've gotten very bad at it."

He folds up the letter and stows it in his back pocket. And because he detests every single one of your nervous habits, he covers both your hands with his own. (You can't help thinking that nobody treats your hands the way he does. He's always so gentle with them.)

"Really?" He sighs when you nod. "Oh well. It's okay. I've always been bad at it. But then again, it's never really mattered before."

"…Is it starting to matter?"

"It might," he murmurs, watching the candle, watching the floor, watching anything but you, really. Sometimes you wish he'd look at you—but most of the time you don't mind that he never does, because he'd probably be able to read everything in your face, and then you'd be in trouble. "I don't really know. I don't think about these things, usually—I never know what to call them."

That almost makes you laugh. You tend to lose the words, both of you—and maybe it bothers him to find out that he doesn't always need them.

"Do you need to call them something? You're only talking to me, anyway."

"I know I don't have to, because it's just you—but don't you find it just a little strange that we never say anything?"

"We never have to, I guess." You bite your lip. Suddenly you're not sure this is okay—you wish things would be normal again, but then you realize you barely know what normal is. You wonder if he does. "But I don't know. I'm not like this with anyone else."

"…Neither am I. Does it bother you?"

"A lot of the time I end up forgetting, but sometimes I worry. When I remember."

But even waiting becomes very, very difficult after a while, with only cliff faces, and letters in back pockets.


	17. Dreamweaver

**A/N: **I'm not dead (anymore)! D: If I've been dead for the past x months it's because of internet issues and the insane senior year bucketload of schoolwork. But now that I have free time (and a half-decent connection) again, here's something new. Finally. For prompt #12: Music. Because Aerith says she can't sing.

* * *

**Dreamweaver**

Did you have a bad dream? Shhh, don't cry, it's okay. Come here. Stay close to me. You can hold my hand too if you want; it's nice and solid and real, more real than all the scary things you see in your nightmares, even if it _is _a lot smaller than yours. There, see? Nothing to be afraid of. I'll take care of you.

Do you remember how we used to make up stories to tell each other during the night when we couldn't sleep, back when we were very little? I remember your stories; they were always about dragons and heroes and war—you know, things boys like. I didn't like the idea of fighting very much—I preferred fairytales then, of course, and I still do—but I loved every single one of your stories. The good people always won in the end, and even if lots of scary things happened in between, they didn't seem scary at all. Nothing is scary, not when I'm with you.

There was always something special about the way you told the stories in those days; it's kind of a shame you don't tell them anymore. I've never been as good at it—I wish I was—but would you like to hear a story? I have a nice, long one that I made up myself. I've been working on it for quite a while, just for you. I know you have nightmares all the time, even if you don't say anything.

All right, come a little closer so I can cover you with the blanket. And keep holding on to my hand, just like that. Oh, and close your eyes. It helps the imagination. And if you fall asleep somewhere in the middle, it's okay.

This story is about the stars—one star in particular, the smallest and shyest little star in the whole of the night sky. And—promise you won't laugh!—a lion. A black lion. But, see, I'm getting ahead of myself already; I told you I wasn't that good at this. I'd sing you back to sleep instead if I could, but I don't think you'd like it very much. Oh well. Hmm…

Like all the best bedtime stories, this story starts with "once upon a time…"

Once upon a time, in a faraway world, there was a lion. An unusual lion. His fur was long and black all over, except the fur over his shoulderblades—that was red, the kind of red the setting sun turns when it's almost twilight, and grew in the shape of an angel's wings. He was the only lion of his kind, and very, very beautiful. But he was also very lonely.

Why was Lion lonely? That's because Lion lost his home world when he was only a little cub, even if back then he'd liked to think he was already fully grown and able to finish off most enemies with just one swipe of his paw. So poor Lion traveled from world to world a long time, looking for a new place to belong. He met many lions—yellow lions, brown lions, even lions whose fur was white or shiny gold, like sunshine. But he never met another black lion with red wings, and he never found a place that spoke to his heart in quite the same way as the world he'd lost, and that made him very sad. So Lion put his heart in a box and locked it and hid it someplace deepdeep inside himself, where nobody would be able to find it.

Lion grew big and strong over the years, from wandering far distances and searching and even fighting off monsters sometimes. He met lots and lots of different kinds of people, who would always ask him what he was looking for, but did he ever tell them the truth? Did he ever say, "I've put my heart in a box and locked it and hidden it someplace deepdeep inside myself, where nobody will be able to find it, because I can't find my home?" No, of course not. Lion said he was a wanderer, and that he could take care of himself, and that he didn't need a home or a family because his heart was called by the wild. And all the people he met would nod or shrug their shoulders, and let Lion be.

Little did Lion know… You see, there was also a star—just one tiny, tiny star among the millions of stars in the sky, so small and so high up it was almost impossible to see her. But she saw Lion, she watched over him all the time, and she loved him. She sang to him every night—because the stars sing to each other, you know, across the darkness of space, to tell each other that they aren't alone—and Lion woke up at dawn every day with a faint melody in his ears that he thought was just something out of a dream. When he wandered from one world to the next, always plotting his course by the bigger, much brighter stars, she danced across the galaxies to be with him, even if it made her feel so, so small to see so much of the universe.

The stars sing, and they dance, and they dream, you know. Sometimes, as the little star watched the black lion with the red wings like an angel's, and listened to him roar up at the night sky like he was making a wish, she liked to dream that he was wishing for her.

Then, one night, well, someone did make a wish. I'm not sure who. But someone made a very, very big wish—and because of the wish, the star fell…

…Oh, it seems you've fallen asleep. That's all right. I guess it's better this way, because the story doesn't have an ending yet; I only got as far as the part where the star fell when I was making it up in my head. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to her after that, and what happened to Lion, and if they ever found each other in all the worlds. I hope they did. Weren't you the one who told me that every single grain of matter in our bodies was once part of a star?

Hmm? What was the wish?

To be closer.

See, I told you I wasn't that good at these things. But you're sleeping like a baby now, so it seems I've done what I had to do. And I guess it was still better than singing you to sleep—I really don't think you would have liked that at all…


	18. Angels

**A/N: **Finally. For prompt #10 - Sand. May be AU, since there's no real stated setting or timeline.

* * *

**Angels**

"Aerith… what exactly are you doing?"

She tilts her head up to look at his face from where she lies spread-eagled on the beach, the waves washing up around her feet, grains of sand already peppering her hair. And she doesn't answer his question right away, only giggles because from where she is, his image is upside down.

He stands patiently, fixing her with a look that only tries to be stern, waiting for her nonsensical laughter to subside.

"I'm sorry—you look really funny from this angle," she says after a while. "And I'm making angels."

He frowns a little at this—but he looks at the trenches her arms and legs make in the sand and thinks he should have figured as much, and he should really be used to this sort of thing from her. "…Snow angels?"

"_Sand _angels." She smiles at him, emphasizing the word as she would to a very small child, and sweeps her arms up above her head in one smooth movement. "We won't get snow here for months, and what if I don't feel like making angels when it comes? Making sand angels shouldn't be much different, right?"

He points out that snow is just water, and lighter than sand, and that snow may melt into your clothes and give you a cold, but at least it won't stick in your hair and make you itch and sting when it gets in your eyes.

She just smiles wider and tells him, "That last comment was very vain, Leon, especially the part about hair. Come here, stay beside me."

She's still such a little girl in so many ways. Only she would think of trying to make angels in the sand, just because it's not the season for snow. He supposes it's partly his fault that she still gets all these crazy ideas into her head all the time—he's humored her for as long as he can remember. He thinks he should probably stop, but then he realizes he's sitting beside her, and the ocean is lapping at the toes of his boots.

"Good." She beams. "Do you want to…"

"…No."

"Aww, fine."

Up come her arms again. She doesn't even stop to consider the fact that snow melts, and shapes in the sand are washed away by the high tide, even shapes faintly resembling angels. Up and down, up and down, like wings.

"…All right. Maybe one. Just one."

"Yay!" When she stops for just a moment to clap her hands delightedly, he can't help the faint sense of pride he feels at being included in the long list of things that make her laugh and smile. "Do you need me to show you how?"

"No, Aerith, as a matter of fact I do know how to make snow—"

"_Sand _angels."

It's an amusing paradox, really, that he thinks of her as an angel, but she is at her most beautiful to him when she shows him how human she is.

"Okay, fine. _Sand _angels. And please don't flap your arms so hard, you're getting it all over my face."

And if someone from town comes walking along the shoreline and finds it strange to see the girl in the pink dress and the silent man with the scar on his face, trying to make snow angels on the beach in July, no one comments.


	19. Distance

**A/N: **BACK AT LAST. I know it's been a long, long while but at least I'm on my way to finishing this already. This one's for prompt #4 - Moon. :3

Was going to make it talking-through-walls, but I thought the telephone would be cuter. And when all else fails, AU. XD

Dedicated to you-know-who, for you-know-what. HEEHEEHEE.

* * *

**Distance  
**

"Are you still awake?"

"Mmhmm." Shuffling. A soft creak. You can imagine him well enough—sitting at his desk, leaning as far backwards as the high-backed swivel chair will allow, long legs splayed across the floor. "Sorry, I haven't been saying anything; I'm just going through some readings for tomorrow. It's been a pretty work-heavy week."

"Work-heavy, huh." You smile, idly twirling the telephone cord around one finger. "Is college hard?"

"Of course college is hard." You hear the chair creak again, the rustle of pages flipping. Probably some difficult college book he doesn't think you'll be able to understand at this point, child that you are. "I have a paper due tomorrow, and a midterm, and maybe even a frog dissection. And since you are, at the moment, distracting me from studying to make it any easier, you can count on me to not-help you in a similar fashion once you finally get here."

"Pfffft." You frown a little, but this is a fake frown, and if he could see you right now he'd still probably be able to tell that it was fake. "Let me take this opportunity to remind you, Mr. I'm-in-College-Now-So-I-Can-Act-All-High-and-Mighty, that _you _were the one who called _me._ And secondly I really would appreciate it if you stopped treating me like a child. How would you like it if your neighbors started thinking you were… you were Pedobear or something?"

"Stop it, Aerith. My neighbors aren't that nosy. Besides, one more birthday and you will no longer be jailbait."

"Pedobear."

"Jailbait."

As much as you hate the sound of yourself giggling, you can't help it, especially when you hear him sigh with exasperation on the other end. "Can I just say, I love how mature you're being right now."

Grunt grunt. More paper rustling. Silence.

"Leon? Hey, I'm just trying to cheer you up, okay? Please don't be stressed."

More silence. Then you hear him chuckle, very softly, and the sound of a book thumping closed.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about me, okay? It's just… It's hard, you know?"

You know he doesn't like admitting that things are hard. You lean your head against the headboard of your bed and close your eyes.

"College?"

"Being away from you."

He probably hears the thump as you fall out of bed, arms and legs flailing. You know it's not like him to say things like that. And the sound of soft laughter on the other side of the phone irritates you so much that you almost forget about wishing he really means it.

"I _hate_ you."

"I know you do."

"How was school today?"

She laughs. You close the book you're reading and stuff it back into your backpack, cradling the receiver between your ear and your shoulder so you don't miss one second. "That's a very motherly question to be asking, Leon."

"It's also an honest one. Why can't I ever catch a break with you? My intentions are entirely pure and you just take every opportunity to excuse me of secretly being Pedobear."

Well, maybe not entirely, but she doesn't have to know that.

"Okay, okay, fine. Hmmm, school was… okay, I guess. It's just that it's almost summer so it's really hard for anyone to pay attention to the work we still have left to do, and right now all everybody can talk about is Roxas and Naminé getting together…"

After all, you don't need to tell her that you like calling her every night because there's this funny thing about her that makes it seem like you can _hear _everything she does—everything from her smiles to the soft padding of her footsteps against the carpeted floor of her room to the fall of her curly hair as she brushes it out exactly a hundred times before she goes to sleep.

Hearing something like that would probably just make her laugh. And besides, it's a very creepy, stalkerish thing to say anyway. No way she'd ever believe you, not in a million years.

"Are they together, really?" You kick your chair back, trying to sound only mildly interested. On the other end of the line, she's probably perched on her window seat or in her bed with her feet tucked under her, watching the moon. You don't particularly want to think about being far away right now. "Since when?"

"If you want to think about it technically, they've been together for about half a year now, but Roxas only just plucked up the courage to ask her yesterday. He's so cute, he's making sure not to waste any time. They're only sophomores, but when they graduate he knows she wants to go to art school…" You don't catch the rest of her sentence, the words trailing off into nothing as you tilt your head back to glance out the window.

"Are you still there?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I'm still here. I just spaced out a little, I was… I was looking at the moon."

You picture her forehead wrinkling, her lips pursing into a tiny half-frown, and you almost laugh, but then you realize that you do, in fact, miss her—and something twists a little, deep inside.

"Oh, I can see the moon through my window too. It's really pretty, Leon! It's almost full, and it's .?docid=19228651golden."

"I know." You bite your lip. "Anyway, never mind about Roxas and Naminé… What, what are you doing right now? Right this minute?"

"Me? Nothing, I'm just sitting down, talking to you. Or, well, I'm talking at you, and you're only responding properly at certain parts of the conversation, which to tell you the truth isn't very satisfying, but since I'm such an angel I will forgive you."

You're pretty sure the moon looks the same no matter what part of the country you're in.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

"…By the way, you are missed."

She doesn't say anything for so long that you almost regret saying it out loud.

"You too. Only more."

* * *

"Tell me about what you're studying."

"Hmmm?" The utter lack of background noise on his end of the phone used to unnerve you, but you're used to it now. He's used to taking care of himself, and he doesn't ask for much other than privacy; that's probably why his family lets him live by himself in that little apartment. He'd probably go crazy in a dorm anyway—if there's anything he hates, it's nosy people.

You shrug. You know he can't see you, but it just seems right. "Don't you ever do that, talk aloud when you're studying, even if no one's there? It helps. You learn to explain things in your own words. And it'll be doubly helpful in this case because not only will you be helping yourself understand, you'll also be educating me—what could be better?"

You don't tell him that these after-dinner phone conversations by moonlight are your favorite thing about every day, ever since he decided to hop off to college and be a man and maybe even forget you entirely given enough time. You like knowing he's still there. And you like still feeling like you're part of his life, even if you'll never admit it—like something more than just a backstory from a far-off time that nobody takes seriously.

And you miss him, of course. A lot. But those are very clingy, girlish things to say, so you don't say them. And no way he'd ever believe you anyway, not in a million years.

"Huh." There is something of a smile in his voice—not much, because as a rule he doesn't smile generously or often, but enough. "And you're sure Philosophy wouldn't bore you? It's not exactly something girls really get into, you know."

"Now that's just mean. You shouldn't assume things, you sexist pig."

"Okay, okay." A chuckle. "See, it's like this. When you were a baby, the first thing you were aware of wasn't that you were you, but that there was a world that existed around you, right?"

"…All right, so?"

"And it was only from living in the world for a certain period of time that you found out that you were you, of course. Therefore, 'there is no me without world.'"

"There's something slightly grammatically incorrect about that statement, Leon."

"Grammatically, yes, but philosophically speaking, it makes perfect sense. And since there is no you without the world around you, the sense of your life is about the endless extension of yourself toward an Other."

You begin to think that you're getting in over your head.

"You mean love… right?"

Silence.

"I guess. If you want to think about it like that."

"Was that what you were trying to say?"

Can you _hear _someone blush? "Well, maybe, but love is a very… a very small word. When you think about othering, that's only one aspect."

You're sure he can at least hear you smile. "You don't always have to be right."

Silence.

* * *

"I'm going to take you out on your birthday." You say this as a statement and not a question, but then the possibility that (bitter as it is) she might not want to see you crosses your mind, and you hesitantly add, "If you want to, that is."

She doesn't answer immediately; all you hear is the soft, slow swish of the hairbrush through her hair. When she does speak, she sounds surprised, and uncharacteristically shy.

"I'd, I'd love that." A pause. "What do you want to do?"

She sounds so stilted and awkward that you almost smile, but you don't, because you know that if she was right in front of you it would suddenly seem as though your shoes were the most interesting thing in the world.

"You should decide—I mean, it'll be _your _birthday, you know."

"I know." Another pause. "It's just… I realize I haven't seen you in a while. I'm fine with anything, really, but you might… I don't want to bore you. What would you like to do?"

You imagine yourself taking her hands and squeezing them gently. "Look, Aerith, that'll be a weekend anyway, so I'm happy to just drive there and be your personal bodyguard and chauffeur for the day to celebrate your not being jailbait anymore. Your wish is my command. What'll it be?"

She doesn't say anything for a minute. Probably contemplating the moon again or something, but the moon never talks for either of them.

"…Can we have coffee?"

"Perfect," you say encouragingly, without sarcasm. "I love coffee. I'm addicted to coffee nowadays. What else?"

"And then I can treat you to a movie."

"…_You'll_ treat _me?"_

"Yes. I haven't seen you in a while, and _Radioactive Teddybear Zombies _will be showing, and I know how much you want to see it, and you're already going to drive me around, and it'll be _my _birthday, so it's only fair that you have to let me treat you." Pause for breath. "Is that okay?"

You frown. This is not exactly going according to plan, but oh well. Whatever makes her happy. "Hmm, okay. Fine. One last thing."

"One last thing?"

"Yes, Aerith, anything."

"Let's have dinner with my family?"

You wonder if that weird sinking feeling you're suddenly experiencing is your stomach falling into your shoes.

* * *

"Leon?"

"What is it?"

"…Nothing, actually. It's just that you weren't saying anything."

"Oh. Sorry. I guess I kind of spaced out."

"No, no, it's okay, you can go on not saying anything. I don't mind, really, I just… I guess I just wanted to be sure of you."

"It's getting pretty late, you know. You should go to bed."

"I guess I should. What, what time will you come by tomorrow?"

"I can be there by lunchtime."

"Cross your heart."

"Yes, yes, little girl. Cross my heart. I, I can't wait to see you."

"I can't wait to see you either. You, you've been missed. I mean, whatever, I missed you. A lot."

Silence.

"You too. Only much, much more."


End file.
